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Some Stonework

There was recently a thread about stone projects/stone work so following that I thought I would share some stuff I have been working on.

I have been remodeling a shower - if you visit the plumbing section you may have seen some of my plumbing related threads there (and occasionally been told to hire a pro ).

I wanted everything to match in the shower. However the pre-made molding did not match the Noce tiles I was using so I made some out of same tile used in the project. Two tiles were laminated to make it 1" thick and then routed, filled, polished, sealed and then installed.

You can see the finished pieces after fabrication as well as a couple of photos showing the install.

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Push sticks/blocks Save Fingers
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"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
attributed to Samuel Johnson
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PUBLIC NOTICE: Due to recent budget cuts, the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil...plus the current state of the economy............the light at the end of the tunnel, has been turned off.

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Thanks for the complements guys To answer your question CWS - the rounded corner of the tile was done by cutting a strip and then gluing the strip at right angles followed by routing the rounded profile and then polishing. The stone (like a lot of pretty stones that come with a lot of veining) is very fragile and some of the strips broke in multiple places. I've done enough projects now where I can take those pieces and glue then in a manner you won't know it broke.

For the rounded inlay I stuck the last few tiles together with blue tape and then routed the curve on my tilesaw. The profile wheel is also designed to cut and route at the same time which made this possible. Polishing was by hand with hand diamond pads.

I also made the trim on the tilesaw since a strip so narrow cannot be routed by hand with a grinder or a large router used for countertops. I believe they make the commercial ones on big stone machines that most don’t have access to.

I'm not very good at remembering to take photos but here are a few I found of some of the process.

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Actually this is my first tile project although I've done other stone projects using slabs rather than tile. Large tiles are tricky to install because the surface has to really be level and plumb - any errors in the substrate will be heavily magnified over using small tiles. The substrate (other than the Kerdi which was used for waterproofing) is actually a masonry (mud) wall which I made out of lime, cement and sand so that I could get a true flat surface.

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Working and finishing stone is a slow process. For example it took about 5 mins to polish each piece for one grit. A total of 5 grits for a honed finish and a total of 16 pieces gives = 400 mins = about 6 and a half hours just to polish. Also I had to use hand pads on the little "ridge"areas and circular pads on a grinder on the bullnose section. So probably over 7 hours on just polishing alone. By the time you add the time to laminate, route and fill probably closer to 10 hours to make that trim.

if you want it looking good you have to spend lots of time.

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My Mother was a nurse by profession. She had her own table saw,scroll saw , Ect. She did the House repairs. Dad did a lot of different jobs , Teaching ,was one. Moms long gone ,But often while working, I thank Her for My smart Hands. Where did You get those Smart Hands ?

I can build anything You want , if you draw a picture of it , on the back of a big enough check .

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My Mother was a nurse by profession. She had her own table saw,scroll saw , Ect. She did the House repairs. Dad did a lot of different jobs , Teaching ,was one. Moms long gone ,But often while working, I thank Her for My smart Hands. Where did You get those Smart Hands ?

No idea tool - certainly not from family I come from a family of doctors, dentists, engineers etc and no-one in my famlly (or friends for that matter) are into this kind of stuff.

Here are a couple of photos I took today I thought I would post given this is mainly a plumbing form - using a copper fitting to make a curved corner in stone.